Saturday, August 20, 2011

Manuel Blows 2nd Save of the Season

On Tuesday night Phillies manager Charlie Manuel blew his first save of the 2011 season by sticking with Roy Halladay for too long. Last night he blew his second save in grand fashion, allowing a walkoff grand slam. Okay, so Fuqua didn't actually throw the pitch that Ryan Zimmeran deposited over the leftfield fence, but he sure as hell lead to the cause of it.

Rewind to Tuesday night. Manuel warmed closer Ryan Madson up in the 9th inning while Halladay ran out of gas, but never used him. Then in Wednesday's blowout win (9-2), he decided to get Madson "some work" despite the game situation, because you know once you warm a pitcher up you have to bring him in (hate that f'n stupid mindset). Then on Thursday an actual save situation arose and Madson came in to fill his role. Again last night a save situation was in play, but Madson had essentially thrown a starter's load worth of pitches over the past 3 days between the bullpen and actual game, so he was worn out and it was obvious. Two-thirds of an inning, 6 earned runs, blown save, loss. Ugly!

Some of this could have been averted. For instance, once Wednesday's game got out of hand, Michael Schwimer was the logical choice to pitch in relief, and it would have saved Madson some bullets. Also, Manuel could have allowed Brad Lidge to work a second inning last night, seeing as though he only expelled 7 pitches in his 1 inning. This would have allowed Bastardo and/or Madson to share the 9th or work it solo.

It's hard to get too mad about a loss considering the Phils are having an amazing season, but the season is far from over, and dumb managing is something that always raises the ire of fans.

7 comments:

Not sure i totally agree with you on this one. Who's to say Madson was "tired" and not just having a bad night? Or maybe he was rattled by J-Money's at bat. Either way, its a loss so today is guaranteed to be a win. If you gotta blow a save, you might as well do it that way, right?

We seem to have a opening series curse. Inevitable loss on the first game. As fucked up as everything was I should have know going into the 9th, but 99% of the time you could have predicted a 1,2,3. Last night reminded me this is still the game of baseball.My hope is JMJ and victorino cause Lanna-nuggs to absolutely loose his shit on the mound tonight.

Great being at the game tonight. This is the 5th or 6th year I've been seeing the Phils play in DC and I would say I've never before seen a Phillies crowd as large and as vocal as tonight's! Even opening day last year with Roy Halladay, there wasn't this large percentage of good guys. It was quite a sight!